Forgotten Knitting and Other Lovelies

This magazine malarkey is getting pretty time consuming, I can tell you. We’ve been working on giving Olann and a brand new look, which to be fair, is amazing and we both love it, but neither of us had anticipated the time involved in making the switch. Fingers crossed though, we have most, if not all of the items sorted and hope to publish tomorrow (I think?) and I have a little time free, to catch up on some other bits and bobs.

I was on here the other day, tidying things up and fixing links, when I realised that I hadn’t posted about the Barista Cardigan I knitted for Dina? I think I thought I had, because I’d already loaded the photographs up into the blogs media library and then I spoke about it on Episode 9 of the podcast. Anyway, that’s a rather long winded way of introducing the Barista Cardigan.

I’d first heard about the cardigan on Johanna Eriksson’s YouTube podcast, A Crafting Experiment. I think it was one of the garments she showed on episode 2 or 3 and I know she knitted it up in next to no time. I have to confess a love of Johanna’s podcast, so much so, it’s one of the ones we review in the coming issue of the magazine (find out more there).

The design is one of twenty four, included in the book My Favorite Cardigans to Knit by Birgitta Forslund, some of which are knitted and others, despite the name of the book, that have been crocheted. I think I’m correct in saying the book has been translated from Norwegian, which is why you might not have seen it before.

I adore the bright emerald green version in the book and would love to have made Dina’s in it, but the L.U.P Angora Yarn it calls for was a little pricey for something I wasn’t 100% sure she’d wear. Johanna used Drops Brushed Alpaca Silk for her version and if you look at her project page, it’s in a beautiful coral. This set me off to looking at what other shades the Drops yarn is available in. I originally ordered the light grey and the denim, as I wasn’t too sure which shade to knit, but when it arrived the grey was more of a beige.

Do you recall the photo I posted of it before Christmas? You can kind of see how beige the yarn is.

Anyway the design is cropped cardi with short sleeves, so it’s a fairly a quick knit, especially as it’s done on 6mm needles. However fine brushed silk yarns (think Rowan’s Kidsilk Haze), aren’t the easiest of yarns to work with though as they’re super slippy and I found myself having to concentrate a little more on my stitches.

I knitted the smallest size and followed the pattern to the word, but added an extra inch to the length of the body, as Dina’s torso is quite long. Picking up stitches in such light yarn is never fun and I ended up knitting the button bands twice, because I wasn’t happy with how they were sitting.

The buttons I bought, were a fantastic colour match and light enough for the yarn, but when I came to sew them on, I realised they were to small. I considered going back to the shop to purchase the next size up, but thought, they’d drag the bands out of shape, instead I opted to sew the buttonholes up a little.

I’m not completely satisfied with the bands, they look like they’re pulling at the body stitches and slightly uneven, but they’re not, they run perfectly up the sides of the cardi. My feelings about the neck are similar, I was all ready to sew another button onto the collar and fudge a buttonhole, but Dina assures me it’s fine and it doesn’t sit funny and I have a couple of spare buttons if she changes her mind.

In total the cardigan took less than three balls of the Drops brushed Alpaca Silk and cost a little over €15, under €20 if you add in the cost of the buttons – bargain!

Better still, Dina sent me a photo of her wearing it, hopefully she didn’t just pop it on to take the photo?

Talking of forgotten items, I’d also forgotten to share photos of this lovely hank of yarn with you. My good friend Goosey Lucy bought me it and I felt awful because I’d managed to mislay it (sadly not an unusual occurrence for me). Anyway, I was looking for something the other day for the magazine and I discovered my misplaced hank of yarn in the same box.

It’s like receiving it all over again.

Just look at those colours ♥

It’s on their Happy Owl sock base, which is 100% Blue Faced Leicester. I love the way the flash of red is still red, with only the tinniest bit of it turning to purple. I think it’s destined to become a pair of socks, but I haven’t decided completely yet. Any ideas, perfect for 400m of 4ply yarn, would be gratefully received?